Tag: Memorial Day

Tuesday’s Theme Music

A cool spring morning, 65F, has settled on Ashlandia, where the men have beards and the children are above average. It’s May 20, 2023, a quiet morning. Activities are slowly cranking up. Summer unofficially started for many in the United States, kicked off the by somber sales, cookouts, and celebrations associated with Memorial Day. The needle on the thermometer will get tugged up into the upper seventies, and might even broach the 80s. As difficult to predict as whether the Biden-McCarthy debt limit bill will be passed.

There have been no more cougar signs in our sliver of Ashlandia. Papi and Tucker are still kept inside at night. Papi no like. He was better last night. Surprise, I fed him midnight-ish, which induced him to wash and sleep. Clever of me, isn’t it? I don’t know. He’s smart enough to manipulate me with what he’s learned.

My wife and I grilled out yesterday. Nada fancy. Portabella ‘shrooms, onions, asper-grass, squash, and red peppers, along with Impossible Burgers, our plant-based meat sub., coleslaw, and ranch style beans from a can. All were excellent. I’m not a great griller – my BIL and ex-BIL are both superb in that skill – but I muddle through. Yesterday’s muddle turned out great.

The Neurons have inserted “The Long Run” by The Eagles out of 1979 into the morning mental music stream. This is a direct result from reading political news and some personal projects underway. As so many frequently ask, “What’s going to happen? Will this work? What’s going to be the outcome?” To which frequently comes, “We’ll find out in the long run.”

Stay pos. Try to treat yourself better. Coffee drinking is underway, freshly brewed, black, untouched by cream or sugar, just the way it should be. Brekkie — oatmeal with cranberries, topped with granola — has also been completed. The cats have eaten and washed, and are now sunning. Here’s the music. Cheers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=884VNMgJxpA
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Monday’s Theme Music

5/29/2023

Monday. Memorial Day in the US.

Another pause to honor the military who died in one of our wars.

How each individual arrived in military service begins in a personalized way, and is shaped by their heritage and disposition, education and religion. Propaganda drove people, as did politics and the norms of the day. What it meant to be a man. What freedom and independence means, the rights of individuals and the rights of nations. Some lacked choice; their number was called in a draft. Too many times as lights came on in the aftermath, lies were discovered as well as crimes against humanity. Sometimes those crimes were never prosecuted. Apologies came later.

War is simple — kill more of the rest and undermine their war-making abilities — and complex. Besides tales of atrocities, amazing stories of sacrifice and courage are revealed. Some become legendary, immortalized in books, movies, statues. Others become a name on a plaque. The most fortunate come back, intact as possible.

I served for over twenty years, a kid who walked in on his own, signed up and stayed. What I’ll say of my military brothers and sisters was the same as I’d say for most gatherings. There were some amazing men and women, many average people, a few troubled ones, and some you tried avoiding because they weren’t going do abide by any law or moral code the rest of us used.

Multiple songs about war, the military, and all the matters which those terms encumber came up in the morning mental music stream. The one which stayed with me is “One Tin Soldier” from 1969. Gaining fame from its use in the movie Billy Jack, the song is two stories; one about a war of aggression by one kingdom against another that was fueled by jealousy and envy. The other story being told is about rationalizing bending morality and your code to achieve whatever goal is set.

Go ahead and hate your neighbor
Go ahead and cheat a friend
Do it in the name of heaven
You could justify it in the end

There won’t be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgment day
On the bloody morning after
One tin soldier rides away

h/t to lyrics.com

Stay pos. My coffee is here. Release the hounds. Time to chase another day.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Launch the Mark V!

Today is Friday, May 26, 2023. Friday before Memorial Day in the US. This year’s Ashlandia weather has been set up for a fun weekend. 68 F now, no clouds to scuff the blue sky. We’re looking at some low 80 F highs for the period.

Many folks around the nation will employ the Friday Mark V. Features of the Mark V includes a four-day weekend, cook-outs, and general games and partying. Memorial Day is a Monday holiday, as established by law in the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1968. Gives many people at least a three-day weekend. Employees often invoke a three and a half day weekend, taking off from work early.

People are still working though. Restaurants, hospitals, emergency services, military, hospitality and travel industries. And sales. Memorial Day always invokes some kind of sales extravaganza. The opportunities used to be blasted over the radio and television airways. Cars, furniture, mattresses, lawn equipment.

Let me note, though, my wife’s family always treated as a solemn period. No cook-out or grilling, nor drinking and partying. They drove to the cemetery to pay respects to the passed and put flowers on their graves.

Not us. Mom always pushed for a big holiday for this one. Lotta food. Fried chicken, burgers, hotdogs, complemented by potato salad and chips, finished up homemade pies. We usually attempted to go to some park for the day, and my favorite memories involve Keystone Lake in Pennsylvania. We’d leave at dawn so we could get good parking and the best spot. Then we’d haul our food and gear across the land like some great pioneering family. Chairs, blankets, umbrellas, food, beer, sodas, Kool-aide, gloves and balls, frisbees and other games, radio, utensils and plates. Directed by Mom, I would run ahead to find the best spot and claim it, as if the park wasn’t almost empty at that point. Oh, we had such good times.

But sometimes, we stayed home, cooking out in the back yard, playing games there. Fun, too, you know? That was mostly done on Laurie Drive in Penn Hills, before things began unravelling.

Those were the years I was finding rock and roll. One of my early favorites were Steppenwolf with “Born to be Wild” from 1968.

Stay pos. Whether it’s a holiday for you or not, I wish upon you a great day. Not all days can be great but we can still try.

Here’s the tune. Dial up the volume and wake up the wayback machine and sing along.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Sitting on the cusp of June, watching the Earth’s rotations roll on. Today is May 31, 2021, a Monday. It’s Memorial Day in the U.S., making this a classic Memorial Day Monday. Now just add a mocha…

Sunshine’s streaming slipped silently in at 0538. I was there to see it, having arisen to tend the bladder’s call. Mountains and trees hide the sun’s early efforts in my house so there was naught to see but the growing emergence of a blue summery sky. Yes, it’s not summer that, but try telling the weather. We’ll be dry and in the nineties today in Ashland. The Earth’s rotation will take the sun away at 2040 or thereabouts. I can see that pretty clearly from the house’s front.

I’d forgotten about the hummingbird episode of the day before yesterday. Out walking toward sunset, I’d gone up the street a few hundred feet in elevation. Turning from one road to another to go up more affording great views of the valley’s northern side. No matter the season, I engage in slowing down to turn and consider the rolling hills and short peaks. Sunshine lingers on that side. They get more snow in winter. Spring greens are rich and lavish. Sunset brings whatever is there into sharper relief.

While doing my contemplating, a green hummingbird darted down and hovered in front of my face. Edging left, right, vertically dancing, the little black-beak friend seemed to be scanning me. This habit of theirs always entertain me. I speak to them with my mind, saying hello and such. This one stayed for about ten seconds before climbing and turning, losing itself behind a veil of leaves. Hummingbird visits are fortifying. I continued on my way a bit happier.

Memorial Day offers a rich memory lode. Mom enjoyed holidays and made the most of these to create memorable family get togethers. In good years, we headed to a state beach, going early to get good parking and good spots. Food was prepared ahead. Think fried chicken, potato salad. Then there was grilling burgers and wieners, lavishing them with condiments. Make mine a cheeseburger, please, with pickles, lettuce, tomatoes, onion, ketchup, and mustard. Dessert — we’re talking pies or cakes here, but often also had watermelon — followed. Augmenting these courses were chips, pretzels, and cookies. None of us were fat, though. Besides all that, we played sports like volleyball or badminton, and went swimming. Time was also spent walking around, enjoying the natural environs.

My wife’s family had a different take. Their Memorial Day was Decoration Day, a time to load up in the car and go visit the family cemeteries, say hello to deceased members, put flowers on graves, and remember those folk. Socializing with other family who lived nearby followed. Then, back home.

For our holiday in 2021, I’m painting more of our house’s interior. We’re far from family. Most of her nucleus has passed away. All of our relatives live thousands of miles from us. It’s a low key celebration and reflection for us.

All this memorifying has me nostalgic for old rock. Enter Jefferson Airplane with their 1967 song, “Somebody to Love”. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask when asked, and get that vax. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

This is Memorial Day in the USA. As we remember the ones who gave their lives in wars to preserve our freedoms and celebrate their lives, I watch with wonder at others thumbing their noses at the efforts to keep them safe.

“Tyranny,” they shout. “My body, my choice.”

Tyranny

“You’re trampling on our rights.”

Just Mary

Watching the social distancing and mask-wearing guidelines collapse in Missouri (via video) yesterday (well, they did have hand sanitizer and were taking people’s temperature, so I’m sure it’s all good…), an old Steve Miller Band song, “Serenade”, came to mind.

Wake up, wake up
Wake up and look around you
We’re lost in space
And the time is our own

h/t to Genius.com

That’s my choice for this Memorial Day’s theme music.

 

 

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Memorial Day

With 97,000 plus deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the United States in 2020 and states starting to re-open, I believe we’ll probably start seeing a new meme about ‘Memorial Day’ as we’ll certainly cross 100,000 deaths before Memorial Day.

Which prompts me to recall Trump’s February 26 comment. “You have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.”

Today, three months later, we’re at 1,637,593 cases in the United States, which is a long way from zero.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Today’s choice arrived in the stream because of a chance encounter with a friend.

I’m retired military, 1974 – 1995. He was in the Army for almost five years. Most of that time was in Vietnam. May, 1969, was his one year anniversary of being in country. It was a bloody year for him. He lost many friends. He was also nineteen.

We guessed that it was just a juxtaposition of insights that brought about the darkness dragging him down this weekend. This is twenty nineteen, which kicked off the memory of being nineteen, when he was in Vietnam fifty years ago. It’s probably because of Memorial Day, and the many men walking around with Vietnam Vet hats on their heads, and the television shows talking about different military campaigns. It could be his sense of mortality. He’s getting older, as he reminded me.

He never cried when he spoke but he did a lot of sniffing, some quick eye wipes, and sometimes coped with a trembling voice with some deep breaths. Vietnam offered some hairy days, and he was grateful to have survived without too much damage, get home, go to college under the GI Bill, marry, and have a family.

After we shook hands and went our separate ways, and I was walking under the lush green trees, past beautiful beds of colorful flowers as cars rolled by and people pursued their celebrations of Memorial Day, I started streaming an old favorite song.

Here, from nineteen seventy-four, is William DeVaughn with “Be Thankful for What You Got”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDTXljIqxRE

 

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